The city has not done enough to improve the quality of life for Black people in Austin, the leader of the Austin Justice Coalition said Wednesday.
A 2008 report outlined how the city could make improvements. The report offered more than 50 recommendations in six areas, including education, health care, housing and economic opportunities.
Chas Moore said the city has made little progress on those recommendations more than a decade later.
"It is disheartening to witness the persistent neglect of the African American community in Austin," he said. "The recommendations made in 2008 remain unfulfilled, and it is time for the city to confront its failure to address the deeply rooted issues that continue to plague our community."
"It is disheartening to witness the persistent neglect of the African American community in Austin."Chas Moore, Austin Justice Coalition
The local research organization Measure conducted a year-long study that found the city had not kept up its end of the bargain. Measure will release its 40-page report next week.
Meme Styles, founder and president of Measure, said during a State of Black Austin address Wednesday that the city claimed to have implemented many of the 2008 recommendations, but there’s not a lot of evidence to support that.
"The city has not done, at all, a good job whatsoever, at communicating the strategies and the implementation of those 56 recommendations," she said.
For example, she said, one of the recommendations was to create a partnership with Huston-Tillotson University to give students access to certain jobs within the city.
"Nothing ... zero," she said.
Huston-Tillotson does have a partnership with Austin ISD to increase the number of Black male teachers in public school classrooms. But nothing was found to show similar efforts by the city, she said.
Austin has grown quickly, but the growth of Black and Hispanic populations has slowed over the last several years. Many families have been pushed to the outskirts of Austin and places like Del Valle, Leander and Georgetown, for many reasons, including affordability.
Nelson Linder, president of the Austin NAACP, said that's because Austin has not invested in Black communities — a problem that was pointed out nearly 20 years ago.
Back in 2005, the Austin NAACP did a study on how the city was ensuring fair and equal treatment of Black residents. Linder said the group looked at policing, housing and health care — and Austin failed in almost every area.
The findings prompted the city to create the African American Quality of Life Initiative, which was tasked with assessing the conditions and sentiments of the Black community through community discussions.
“We’ve been working every year since then to address the disparities in this city that were highly prevalent in the Black community and still are even today,” Linder said.
He said little has changed. Displacement has continued to be a problem for residents and businesses. Health care, economic empowerment and education for Black residents are still not a priority, he said.
“The City of Austin has not really invested the amount of money required to address these issues,” Linder said. “That is the primary problem. The investment is not there and the commitment is not there.”
Linder said it's now up to the community to hold Austin accountable and continue to push for programs and policies that benefit everyone.
On Wednesday, Moore said that push includes calls to renovate the George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural and Genealogy Center, which he said is having foundation issues.
"I'm hopeful that some of my remarks, and really just the study itself, [will] show that Austin has dropped the ball," Moore told KUT. "But it's not too late to pick it up."
Mayor Kirk Watson would not comment on the study, saying he had not yet seen it.
